Nim

Another simple one.

Part 1: count each time a beam crosses a splitter.
Part 2: keep count of how many particles are in each column in all universes
(e.g. with a simple 1d array), then sum.

Runtime: 116 μs 95 µs 86 µs

type
  AOCSolution[T,U] = tuple[part1: T, part2: U]

proc solve(input: string): AOCSolution[int, int] =
  var beams = newSeq[int](input.find '\n')
  beams[input.find 'S'] = 1

  for line in input.splitLines():
    var newBeams = newSeq[int](beams.len)
    for pos, cnt in beams:
      if cnt == 0: continue
      if line[pos] == '^':
        newBeams[pos-1] += cnt
        newBeams[pos+1] += cnt
        inc result.part1
      else:
        newbeams[pos] += cnt
    beams = newBeams
  result.part2 = beams.sum()

Update: found even smaller and faster version that only needs a single array.
Update #2: small optimization

type
  AOCSolution[T,U] = tuple[part1: T, part2: U]

proc solve(input: string): AOCSolution[int, int] =
  var beams = newSeq[int](input.find '\n')
  beams[input.find 'S'] = 1

  for line in input.splitLines():
    for pos, c in line:
      if c == '^' and beams[pos] > 0:
        inc result.part1
        beams[pos-1] += beams[pos]
        beams[pos+1] += beams[pos]
        beams[pos] = 0
  result.part2 = beams.sum()

Full solution at Codeberg: solution.nim